Device Description Repository Current Status

This page summarizes the relationships among specifications, whether they are finished standards or drafts. Below, each title
links to the most recent version of a document.

Completed Work

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Group Notes are not standards and do not
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Standards

Web content delivered to mobile devices usually benefits from being tailored to take into account a range of factors such as screen size, markup language support and image format support. Such information is stored in "Device Description Repositories" (DDRs).

This document describes a simple API for access to DDRs, in order to ease and promote the development of Web content that adapts to its Delivery Context.

Group Notes

This document describes the Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary for Content Adaptation in the Mobile Web, described in the charter of the Device Descriptions Working Group, as well as the process by which the Vocabulary was defined.

This document details use cases for a Device Descriptions Repository (DDR). In order to realize these use cases, certain behaviors will be expected of a DDR: these behaviors are determined and listed as requirements.

This Working Group Note forms one of the deliverables of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative Device Description Working Group. The requirements in this document are derived from the listed use-cases as well as information in the Device Description Landscape [DDLAND] and Device Description Ecosystem [DDECO] documents.

This W3C Note describes the business models surrounding the creation, maintenance and use of device descriptions. It identifies the main actors in the current model, explores their motivations for participating, identifies the costs associated with participation and the benefits that accrue to participants.

It is shown in this Note that the current model is incomplete, partly because of the absence of a common repository that can address the needs of the various actors. A complete model is postulated, on the assumption of the existence of a common repository, from which is derived some key requirements upon such a repository to ensure the success of the model.

This Note should be read in conjunction with the DDWG Landscape document, which provides details of the particular technologies and actors currently engaged in work related to device descriptions. This Note, together with the Landscape document, provides input to the DDWG Requirements document.

Developing Web content for mobile devices is more challenging than developing for the desktop Web. Compared to desktop Web clients, mobile Web devices come in a much wider range of shapes, sizes and capabilities. The mobile Web developer relies upon accurate device descriptions in order to dynamically adapt content to suit the client.

This Note describes what efforts the W3C and other organizations are doing in order to provide accurate device descriptions. This Note should be read in conjunction with the DDWG Ecosystem [DDWG-Ecosystem] document.

This Note, together with the Ecosystem document, provides input to the proposed DDWG Requirements document as described in the DDWG Charter [DDWG-Charter]